3:50pm UK, Friday August 06, 2004

Dozens of whole and partially dissected human bodies are to go on show in a new exhibition.

Bodies Revealed: The Exhibition will also include hundreds of organs.

The organisers say all the bodies had been left for the benefit of medical science.

The show is opening at Blackpool's Winter Gardens before a world tour.

During its four-month run in the Lancashire town it is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors.

It is the latest venture from the company behind Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition.

The bodies have been preserved using a revolutionary new technique known as polymer preservation.

This stops natural tissue decay but allows visitors to see close up how our bodies work.

The exhibition is similar to the Bodyworlds project by controversial German professor Gunther von Hagens.

Bodyworlds also featured human corpses and organs in varying states of dissection.

In November 2002, Prof von Hagens carried out a post mortem examination in public in London.